Just a quick note:

“The Phoenix Mars lander finally was successful in delivering a fresh sample of Martian soil to the Thermal and Evolved Gas Analyzer (TEGA) oven on Wednesday and a ‘bake and sniff’ test identified water in the soil sample. ‘We have water,’ said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for TEGA. ‘We’ve seen evidence for this water ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks observed by Phoenix last month, but this is the first time Martian water has been touched and tasted.'”

Read the full article here.

(I’m still here, but just back from a few weeks away and trying to get caught up. Also – keeping up with the Lambeth Conference and helping out with Episcopal Café is taking a bunch of time. Thus the lack of updates here.)